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Lenovo seeks to emulate turtle's path to success

"It's like the race between a turtle and a rabbit ... So Lenovo is like the turtle. We could compete most effectively in the mud, in the different environment, than those rabbits."

Yang Yuanqing,chairman of Lenovo

China's largest computer maker Lenovo (聯想) needs to be a "turtle" that can move ahead slowly but surely in a tough business environment, overtaking its more complacent competitors, its chairman said yesterday.

Lenovo, which completed its US$1.75 billion acquisition of IBM's personal-computer unit in May, must strive to remain competitive while also winning a reputation for brand quality, Yang Yuanqing (楊元慶) said.

"It's like the race between a turtle and a rabbit. If they both run on the street, there is no doubt the rabbit will win. But in the mud, very likely the turtle will be the winner," he said in a speech at a business forum in Tokyo.

"So Lenovo is like the turtle. We could compete most effectively in the mud, in the different environment, than those rabbits," he said.

In Aesop's fable "The Tortoise and the Hare," a hare ridicules a tortoise who challenges his mocker to a race.

The slow-moving reptile wins the contest after the overconfident hare takes a nap midway through the course.

"We are an international company and we still need to be like the turtle to learn how to survive and how to win both locally and globally," Yang said.

Asked to comment on the decision to move Lenovo's global headquarters to New York, he said it would help the Chinese company establish a high-profile image for its Lenovo brand after acquiring the internationally famed "Thinkpad" brand from IBM.

"A growing number of Chinese companies are seeking globalization. However until now, very few Chinese brands have become well-known internationally," he said.

"When you hear Chinese brands, probably, naturally you would think that those brands represent low price, low quality. This is really not the situation we want to see," he said.

Lenovo aims to establish a "global image of high quality" and locating the global head office to New York and making Americans manage it would help achieve this goal, he said.

Asked to comment on the current difficulties of some major Japanese companies, Yang said he had learned a lot during his career from Japanese peers, including their relentless pursuit for quality.

"However, as the world economy is constantly changing, I think that if I can offer any advice to the Japanese companies, one thing is the cost," he said.

"The Japanese companies probably need to pay a bit more attention [to it] so that they can be more competitive in the marketplace especially in industries such as personal computers," he said.
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